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UM Interview: Harris Allan

Photo Credit: Neena Robertson

Vancouver, B.C. native Harris Allan has always been involved in the arts. Allan began his music career at the age of 16, as lead singer/guitarist for Square9. What followed found Harris experimenting with music with his first pursuit in a solo music endeavour as a Hip hop/Rap artist Fallan Soldier and performing as a DJ for five years. After refining his craft and sound as a singer-songwriter, last year Harris debuted his new sound with the release of “One Last Ride”, and most recently released his third single “M.O.B”.

Amandah Opoku sat down with Harris Allan to talk about his new single “M.O.B”, dream collaborations and more!

Amandah Opoku: Harris, thank you for doing this interview today! Before we kick off please tell our readers about yourself and one random fact people do not know about you. Harris Allan: Writing songs and getting to share them with people is what I love to do. One random fact people probably don’t know is that I made my first guitar...out of cardboard.

Amandah Opoku: What inspired you to start writing and releasing music as an artist? Harris Allan: My parents played great music around the house. I listened to their CDs and watched music videos on VHS—everything from pop to country to house music. I taped songs onto cassettes and fell asleep listening to the radio every night. I started writing songs before I could play any instruments. Melodies and lyrics would pop into my head, so I recorded them on a tape recorder. When I was 16 I was inspired by bands I was listening to, like Blink 182, so I started playing the guitar and jamming with two of my friends. We formed a band and played shows in and around Vancouver.

Amandah Opoku: If you could describe your music in three words. What words would you choose and why? Harris Allan: Personal, nostalgic, and genre-bending because I write all my songs and they are rooted in my life experience and musical influences.

Amandah Opoku: What artists have inspired you and influenced you musically both through your sound and lyrically? Harris Allan: Bon Iver, Jack Johnson and Sylvan Esso.

Amandah Opoku: If you could collaborate with any artists, who would you choose and why? Harris Allan: Lykke Li. Her melodies and the rhythm of her vocals are unique and pleasant. She’s also effective at genre-bending.

Amandah Opoku: Your musical history finds you as a lead singer/guitarist for Square9, creating hip hop/rap artist under Fallan Soldier, as well as a DJ for a couple of years. When did you realize you wanted to create music under the Alt/Pop genre? Harris Allan: There are glimpses of the style of music I’m creating now in the music I’ve done in the past, but I’ve landed on Alt/Pop since I love catchy melodies and the freedom to write deeper lyrics for certain songs.

Amandah Opoku: 2020 was an interesting year for us, as we’ve had to adapt to our “new normal”. How has the pandemic affected you as a musician? What have you learned about yourself? Harris Allan: Definitely an interesting year. Before the pandemic I was a full-time DJ so being home so much has given me more time to work on original music and write songs. I wrote “One Last Ride” in 2018, but wasn’t ready to record it until I had more songs to back it up. I wrote “All In” last Spring during the first lockdown. I’ve learned that I am more of a homebody than I thought.

Amandah Opoku: “M.O.B” is your latest single. What inspired you to write the single? Harris Allan: I was playing with the phrase “Moments of Brilliance” and started freestyling chords on the guitar and singing “We’ll have moments of brilliance up in the sky”. It went from the general to the specific when “Be my Marilyn” started rolling off my tongue. I liked how it felt to keep repeating that and thought about Marilyn Monroe, so I looked into her life. That’s when I discovered her iconic relationship with Joe DiMaggio. Well, if she’s my Marilyn, I could be her...what? Her...Joe! The P.O.V. of “M.O.B.” is what it feels like to identify with an intense relationship—the good, the bad, the real.

Amandah Opoku: What was the writing and recording process like for “M.O.B”? Did the writing process for “M.O.B” differ from your debut single “One Last Ride” which you released last year? Harris Allan: “M.O.B.” was different in the sense that I started with a phrase I liked and drew inspiration from that, but it was the same in the way that I was sitting alone with an acoustic guitar coming up with the bulk of the lyrics by playing the chord progression repeatedly and seeing what appeared. Recording “M.O.B.” was different because Jeff Zipp—the producer I work with—and I kept most of the music I had on my demo and added to it. With “One Last Ride” I had two demos that were stylistically different so, aside from the vocals and main chord progression, we decided to start from scratch.

Amandah Opoku: As you continue to pursue your career as an artist, what do you hope to achieve? Harris Allan: I’m focussed on building a relationship with my audience, so I really appreciate it when people who experience my music reach out. With the way social media supports community these days, an artist can build a career by meaningfully interacting with dedicated listeners and that’s what I want to do.

Amandah Opoku: As an artist, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced? Harris Allan: Finding enough time in the day to do everything I want to do.

Amandah Opoku: For new fans who come across your music, what would you like them to take away from your music? Harris Allan: I hope they feel a connection and have an experience. The songs I decide to finish and share with people are made because they stir up emotion in me and I hope they do that for others.

Amandah Opoku: With “M.O.B.” out now, what can fans expect from you this year? Harris Allan: I’m planning on releasing a few more singles and performing an interactive live stream on May 21st, which can be viewed on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. I’d like to invite everyone to tune in. I’d love to see you there, so please check my social media for updates.

I’m also pretty excited that my first two singles were selected for the soundtrack of the feature film “Exuvia”, which will be released later this year.

Amandah Opoku: Harris, thank you for sitting down with me! Before we close this interview, is there anything you want to say to your fans and our readers? Harris Allan: I’ve been thinking lately about art and the source of creative moments of brilliance and it dawned on me that they can manifest in many different ways. For instance, we can hear that a songwriter spent twelve years working on a song and we're blown away. But then, we can hear that a songwriter wrote an entire banger in 15 minutes and we're still blown away. There’s no right way to go about creating—we’re all creative—so I would just say, follow your impulses and go for it.

Connect with Harris Allan on the following websites: https://harrisallan.com/ https://www.facebook.com/harrisallanactor https://twitter.com/harris_allan https://www.instagram.com/harrisallan/ https://soundcloud.com/harrisallan

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